Hybrid seed, that is, seed produced by hybridization or cross-fertilization of closely related plants, can be grown into progeny hybrid plants possessing a desirable combination of traits not possessed by either parent plant. Hybrid plants can display superior agronomic characteristics, including improvement of plant size, yield, nutritional composition, disease resistance, herbicide tolerance, stress tolerance, climatic adaptation, and other desirable traits. Efficient hybrid seed production requires that a plant's own pollen not be permitted to self-fertilize the plant.
In hybrid seed production, pollen production and/or shed may be prevented in a female parent plant in order to facilitate cross-pollination of the female rather than self-pollination. Such prevention may be achieved by, for example, manual removal of the pollen-containing structures (e.g., manual or mechanical detasseling in corn), use of a genetic means of pollination control (e.g., cytoplasmic male sterile, nuclear male sterile), and/or use of a chemical agent.